Senior sports writer for The Age

STEVE O'Dowd went to Fitzroy as soon as he'd finished his year 12 exams, after David Parkin and Arthur Wilson picked him up on the last run through to Warrnambool before the old zoning system was pensioned off for the draft. The Roys had finished third that year and were on their last high before terminal decline.

He enrolled in phys ed at uni, moved in with a Fitzroy family handy to this nomadic club's Lakeside Oval base, survived a traditional pre-season initiation. ''First night I got bowled over by Micky Conlan, ran right over the top of me.''

Bernie Quinlan and Garry Wilson had retired but remained fixtures. Paul Roos, Gary Pert, Richard Osborne, Leon Harris and Conlan were still going around. The club was thin in administration, the facilities worn down, the sense of trying to do more with less was obvious. ''But there was a really good feeling.''

The big-time was still semi-professional; only an elite few didn't study or have jobs. The Lions had just plucked a woolly, long-sleeved 21-year-old called Mark Dwyer out of the Western District spud fields. Either side of heading back to play for Koroit when Fitzroy had a bye, he polled so many votes he denied Roos a Brownlow.

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O'Dowd played under 19s, then kicked six in his first reserves game. At half-time he had five, and thought, ''Jeez, this is all right, here comes 10!'' He laughs to think it got a bit harder from there. He reflects that he didn't play well at the right times, wasn't quite up to it. ''It just didn't pan out for me.''

After two seasons he returned to Colac, finished uni and got a job covering sport for the local paper, settled in at centre half-back for the footy team. After a few close-but-no-cigar years, and stuck without a coach one February, a bloke rolled into town in a big American car, one eye closed from a recent disagreement.

''We didn't know what to think, but he must have liked what he saw,'' he says of Michael Lockman, who'd played for Collingwood, Sydney and Richmond, and from this comical late start kicked 125 goals, ''probably as many points'', and led Colac to a premiership. O'Dowd thinks he's the best one-on-one person he has met in the game.

O'Dowd's football was smooth, clean and eye-catching on both sides of the fence. A history of concussions began to mount; an ''old-fashioned nasty one'' he could never have seen coming affected him for months. Impaired peripheral vision, memory loss - ''which wasn't great working at a newspaper'' - he was strongly advised to give it away.

He played his last game aged 26, a year before Fitzroy hung up the boots for good, too.

For a while he was bitter, had trouble watching, missed being part of something. He still reckons there's nothing better than running out on a Saturday afternoon, playing footy with your mates. ''When you're not able to do that, people react differently. I stayed away a bit.''

At length he edged back, as runner, coaching the seconds, on the club's committee. He wanted to see the game from another vantage point, and soon found himself running Football Geelong.

O'Dowd became aware again of the gap between the haves and have-nots, saw clubs struggling to stay afloat because their numbers weren't flash - of dollars, players, volunteers. Summers were spent chasing up money owed the league for fees, footballs, strapping tape.

He saw the drain caused by a lack of consistency - of the faces on club boards, of leadership in coach's boxes, of visions for success. He valued investment in juniors and at least a medium-term view. Still, he could understand the impatience of new coaches and presidents, spending too much on players who didn't earn their dough. It amazed him that clubs managed somehow to survive.

He juggled competing interests, of a league that needed sponsors, and needed strong clubs who also needed sponsors in order to be strong. O'Dowd didn't think for a second that running a footy club or competition was as easy as getting a kick.

The power of a sense of place and belonging were drummed into him. When money was needed to water grounds, lest the drought bring the game to a standstill, Nick Maxwell came to him and asked what he could do, donated signed jumpers, marshalled his peers to be ''talent'' at fund-raisers. ''That's the most tangible support I've seen from AFL to country footy.'' He reckons St Joseph's FC as good as regards Collingwood's captain as its major sponsor.

He noted what the AFL did well with its feeder tiers - the VFL and TAC Cup - and at the entry level for children through its Auskick program. ''After that there's probably a bit of a disconnect.'' He believes country footy clubs would benefit from more funding for coaches and umpiring courses, improved administration practices and the like. ''But I don't know what you do, because if you handed out cash, it'd be gone on a centre half-forward.''

Three years in the job convinced him that country football boasts many admirable people prepared to give much to their local club, but never enough.

Pottering in the garden recently, he told his wife he was thinking about coaching. Last Friday night he walked into the clubrooms at Alvie, where he spent two winters as a junior, for the first time in years. And the first time as a senior coach.

He likes that men who have had the job before are still around the club, not embittered or estranged. He sees the family networks he's come to acknowledge as the lifeblood, providing ready-made recruits, members, connections to the sponsors who keep you afloat. There are Williamsons, Spences, McGuanes, Hickeys, Parkers, just as there was when his own name was on the team sheet 30 years ago.

Challenges are already presenting themselves. He phoned the star player the other night to touch base; he was outside Tamworth, working for a construction company building a dam. The coach won't see much of him beyond Saturday afternoons.

He thinks the Alvie farmers get more of a kick out of the team they truly feel is theirs having a good win than their AFL club sneaking into September. Late last season, unable to make the finals and with some cherished club people unwell, Alvie knocked off the fancied South Colac. It meant a lot to many.

O'Dowd hasn't got much to say about an AFL club rorting the draft, or another apparently tanking, or Israel Folau's millions. He reckons that's the entertainment industry. Like a lot of people whose opinion doesn't seem to matter, he's in it for the footy.